Chapter 6
six
Cindy
I catch up with the House Judiciary Chair, who for some reason willingly goes by Randy, in the tunnels between the House office building and the Capitol on the way to votes.
“Better take the subway, in those heels,” he grunts at me instead of a greeting. He gestures at the little trolley running alongside us that the Capitol refers to as a subway.
“That’s OK, I like to walk,” I reply, smiling aggressively. “I wanted to chat with you about cannabis.”
“Not in the middle of the day,” Randy replies, and his entourage laughs with him.
I keep smiling, keeping pace in the musty corridor. The flags of all 50 states hang over us. When I’m frustrated, I like to watch for mine and imagine being in sunny, dry Colorado wearing hiking boots instead of in this humid swamp wearing heels. I search for it now.
“I’m meeting with various members to see which provision there’s most interest in: Bank access or expungement of past records.” The vice president told me to talk to my own coalition— the other five votes I can promise in the House and the outside groups that support us. But what I want to know is how much support I have from House leadership.
He scowls. “I don’t think you’ll get either.”
"Surely you, in your work, recognize the benefit of allowing banks to work with money from state-legal marijuana businesses.” My heels click, click, click along on the concrete walkway as I hurry to keep up with his longer strides. Damn tight sheath dress shortening my stride. There’s just no winning with women’s business clothing.
He shakes his head. “Don’t have the votes for it. Not with the midterms coming up.”
Familiar anger rises within me. The midterms are almost a year away and already all I hear about. This is why politicians suck: They’re constantly preoccupied with preserving their own positions. “Well, that’s why I’m doing an informal poll. Party wisdom says we don’t have the votes but I think more members are open to…”
“Can’t pass the Senate. You should drop it,” he advises me, not bothering to address me head-on.
I persist. “The banking provision would support the booming economy around the legal cannabis businesses. The White House might even support it if we can prove we have the votes here. Their support could push it through the Senate.” I need the tiniest bit of leverage to show the vice president. Something that says House leadership understands how much voters want bold action and are willing to push further if he offers White House support.
“Pipe dream,” Randy snaps, still walking. He’s breathing heavily from the mild exertion. “Just because you young guns want the world to be some ideal place is no reason to destroy a bill the rest of us can get behind. This might be your first rodeo, young lady, but it’s not mine. Take my word for it: The bill you wrote wants too much.”
This is not the first time a man told me I want too much or called me young lady . Not my first rodeo, in other words. “Then how about expunging records? There are thousands of individuals in some states suffering from a criminal record for minor possession…”
He sighs and pauses in the hallway to focus on me for the first time. “The White House has too many legislative priorities of its own to back an unrealistic bill from some young upstart. You’re deluding yourself if you think you can win their support for either of these provisions. Try aiming lower.”
I chew on my back molars but don’t lose my pleasant smile. Randy is reminding me he doesn’t think I’m qualified for my job, as if it matters to me that I’m not doing it to his satisfaction. I’m here because I won a landslide election and I won based on my support for change. Letting my voters down is not an option, especially not because a Capitol Hill squatter decides I’m too green to understand the job.
No shame in requesting rescue, I decide, throwing a glance over my shoulder. If I stand here with Randy any longer, I may tear into his jowls with my neatly-trimmed nails.
Taking my cue, one of my aides rushes up to me from her trailing position and says quietly, “Ma’am. We need you.”
“Thank you,” I say. And thank God, I have an exit plan to keep from walking with this man one more second. “Excuse me, Randy.”
Talking to Vice President Drake about what needed to be done, I’d almost forgotten how thankless it would be. His own process probably involves a lot of phone calls, scheduled for him by his staff, that members of his party would drop everything else to take. Lucky him. I don't have that kind of sway.
After voting, while members are milling around in the lower chamber waiting for the count to close, I manage to spot the House Financial Services Chair, Adam. I weave through the wooden chairs and members clustered around chatting—including my five freshman allies, who I’ve been avoiding—to reach him. He holds up a hand to me before I open my mouth.
“Drop it right now, Madam Wight. I’m a no-go on the banking provision, and I speak for a number of members, as well.”
An actual list would be helpful, but I hesitate before asking for one. “How did you know?” I ask, smiling like this is not bad news.
“I spoke to Randy. And I spoke to David.”
Earlier, I worked on convincing David, the No. 2 in seniority from our party on his committee. After an hour, he’d agreed that banking seemed easier to spin than expunging millions of records nationwide.
“David is a no, as well,” Adam says, tidying up papers in a folder and tucking it in a briefcase. Casually destroying my work without bothering to turn his head.
Instead of throwing a fit over being undermined like this, I say, “Adam, I’m doing my job. Voters overwhelmingly want action on this issue.”
Adam smirks. “And the party wants to stay in power. What do you think takes priority?”
I wish I had a witness to this ridiculousness. He’s like a parody of a congressman. “I’d like to think that serving our constituents takes precedence over winning the next election.”
He snaps the briefcase closed. “Then you’re even more naive than I thought.” He smiles and walks away from me.
My nails dig into my palm from my clenched fist, but I try not to change expression because there are C-SPAN cameras in here.
I wander over to Steven Wilson and Jesus Pérez, members of the Freshman Six, who will at least understand how infuriating that conversation was.
“Any updates?” asks Steven, the most nervous of our group, before I can fill them in.
“Looks like it’s banking or expunging records right now,” I say wearily.
Steven and Jesus exchange glances and waft judgment. “That’s not good enough,” Steven says. He means, you’re not doing good enough. I’d like to watch him do better.
“I need help calling members to see which provision the majority would support,” I tell him. Smart strategy says to keep them on my side by drafting them to do the work.
“You’re literally calling everyone up and asking if they would vote for one or the other?” Jesus frowns.
“It shouldn’t be a question of one or the other,” Steven interrupts. “We need both.”
I try to stay patient. We are not children, able to throw ourselves down on the floor of the chamber and scream until Congress gives us what we want. That would be so much easier. “I’d like both, too, but I’d rather have one than neither and I can’t craft an argument until I know where we have support.”
But neither of them agree to help. I’m playing a game from a losing position. Time for a new strategy. More firepower. Leverage.
I’m in a race with the vice president and I’m not going to be the one who can’t deliver.
Alex
My sister, Sasha, is making baby-talk sounds at Thor while holding his front legs off the ground and goo-gooing at his fluffy face.
“He hates that,” I say mildly, from where I’m sitting on the loveseat trying to focus on marking up a working draft of the president’s State of the Union speech. “He’s a grown dog, not a little baby.”
“But he looks like a little baby, doesn’t he, yes he does, yes he does,” Sasha says, and picks up the long-suffering Thor to walk over to me.
“I’ve got a PR plan for you to consider,” she says, surveying my slump.
I raise one eyebrow at her, afraid to encourage this. My sister rarely visits, despite living closer than the rest of the family. When she does visit, she’s a whirlwind blend of late-night New York City energy and youngest-daughter recklessness. She is not the Secret Service’s favorite.
“You should unveil your wife-to-be at the State of the Union. When the president wants to slide in something controversial about greenhouse gas emissions, he can drop a line about your surprise honored guest and no one will ever notice.” Sasha cocks a hip, scratching Thor’s floppy ears.
“What wife-to-be would that be?”
“ Hypothetically ,” she handily dismisses reality by waving her free hand. “Although I’m sure mom has one or two picked out for you. If you’d just get married already, you’d cement your place as the golden child of the family.”
“I’m hoping to do that by becoming president, Sasha,” I say drily. “Of course, pleasing our parents is the whole goal of my political career.”
“Har har har,” Sasha says. “You think you’re joking, but I know it’s true. You’re as scared of Mom and Dad’s opinion as the rest of us.”
I close the folder, giving up on working while Sasha is here. I expect she’ll go out tonight but she’ll want me to feed her first. Standing and walking to the kitchen, I ask mildly, “You? Scared?”
It’s a transparent attempt to avoid acknowledging her accusation that I’m still cowed by our parents’ expectations for me. My parents groomed me to go into politics from the time I was old enough to read a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt. I’d done my duty, and then some. And where our corporate-attorney father couldn’t open doors, our socialite mother could. The sole obligation I have left to our parents is financial, for the extraordinary amount they have put into my many campaigns.
“Why do you think I live across the country from them?” Sasha retorts, following me. “Anyway, we’re getting off track. This is about you pleasing the parents, not me.”
“I think I’m doing all right,” I reply. The fridge is full of pre-made food with printed labels. I push aside the guilt that I don’t have time to cook for my little sister. I suspect she subsists on a lot of ramen, and not the good kind.
“Bet being that close to perfection and not quite there is killing you,” Sasha teases.
Grimacing into the fridge, I let the cold air chill my irritation. She’s right, is the problem. My life checks off every box our parents set for me except one. Why has that one box—marriage—been so hard?
“I don’t want to marry just anybody,” I say. I straighten up with a pre-made box of stir fry in one hand. “Even Mom and Dad understand that.”
She laughs and finally releases Thor to scamper off to find a toy to comfort himself with after the humiliating baby talk. “Come on, what’s the real issue.” She sits down at the bar and frames her face with her hands, giving me an exaggerated listening expression.
The issue is that I have a very different idea of who I want to marry from our parents or my advisors, and trying to find a happy medium never works out. I don’t want a “helpmate,” as my mother would put it. Not someone who will cater to, rather than check, the innate arrogance and naked ambition that come with reaching this level of political power.
I want...the image of a woman who would tell me off while wearing a fuzzy onesie pops into my head.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I suggest, dismissing that image. “ Your love life, for instance.”
She waves me off. “Alex, I can give you all the dating app tips you want but I don’t think they will help. I’m trying to imagine the vice president’s profile.” She pulls out her phone and pretends to swipe. “‘Two truths and a lie: I’m vice president, I own a dog and I have a sense of humor.’” She grins.
“Har har har,” I say, mimicking her tone from earlier. I pull out a wok. I wonder if Cindy Wight uses dating apps and what that’s like for her. Dating as a congresswoman can’t be much better than dating as vice president. “I can get a date if I want to, thank you.”
“But would it be a date you want ?”
I sigh the sigh of a big brother being tormented yet again. Time to turn the tables. “I’m surprised at you conforming to the heterosexual norm.” I raise an eyebrow at my sister. “Who says I want to get married.”
She smirks. “I do, because I know you. But OK, hypothetically, say it’s only our parents and the political system putting pressure on you to conform. Aren’t you lonely?”
“When do I have time to be lonely?” I reply, turning away to grab more oil. It’s true that I have no spare time. I have a pile of books on my bedside table and in the bathroom that I’m never going to read and a very full schedule every day this week, including Sunday. It’s also not even a little bit true that I can’t fit in time to feel alone.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response, but it’s obvious how much you want to escape this conversation, so I’m going to cut you a break. I hope you’re talking to somebody about this. Or talking to anyone who doesn’t work for you, period.”
I open my mouth to say: Sure, I talk to the president and the Secret Service. But I close it again rather than keep deflecting. After all, she has a point.
“I appreciate your concern,” I say, then hesitate. Perhaps I should give my sister a tidbit of something real in exchange for her real concern. “And if it helps...I have been talking to someone who doesn’t work for me. Lately.”
Her eyes widen. “Alex! Holding out on me!”
I shouldn’t be turning some light banter with Cindy Wight into something worth talking about. Filled with regret, I hurriedly add, “It’s nothing serious.”
“I’ll take something over nothing,” Sasha says, a little smugly. “I knew there was hope for you yet, big brother.”
I shake my head as I swirl the oil around the pan. But I hope my sister is right and that at least my conversations with Cindy Wight mean something .